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Anarchism Vs. Primitivism - a pamphlet

Discussion in 'Anarchism and radical activism' started by punkmar77, Jun 20, 2013.

  1. Annie

    Annie Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Jun 22, 2013
     
    uuhuups - sorry, but I am no member - the members are these:
    [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=S9_qEBIYoUM[/video]

    and diatribe, abuse, personal attack - where?
    I asked some questions and called your
    a b s u r d (the term isn't abusive, just my personal assessment of your simplistic and dystopian vision
    - uups, I did it again!)
    after that came a very short statement including the braindrain-riddle, meant to provoke an ???-effect in some of the recipients, because I know it's not only industrial capitalist black magicks driving especially the youth out of the rural eden and right into the virtual swirls of high finance...
    your agro-anarchism smells much like foundingfather jefferson or part time eremit thoreau, maybe todays crackademic newcomer mcpherson - and we all know at least where the first two ended & I wouldn't call that a happy end - so my post finished with the short statement that my future will not grow on a farm, but in a workers collective not limited by the division of labour, the continued existence of social inequality via limited professions shrouded in homegrown myths or last but nothing better:
    a new specialization claiming to be (the) most important in key areas of humanity.

    so if you survived this, lets discuss this:

    Murray Bookchin wasn't an anarchist, his works called to the social anarchist tradition as the most compatible & promising movement next to his own views about individualism contra the necessity of mass organisation to make a change.
    but especially the reaction of the syndicalist priesthood on muncipalism, bookchins preference for majority-decision and participation in established politics kept him more than sceptical about certain aspects of modern political anarchism - finally he formulated his own libertarian socialism, wrote about the lifestylers business, including the primitivist and anti-civ booksellers and declared 1999 in public to have broken with anarchism. :'(

    Time for the "noble savage" again?
    despite some feminists desperate effords - there is no evidence for something like a matriarchat in human history - so I say your view on pre-precolombian natives on the american continent is nothing but a romantic illusion.
    some of the native nations have legends of a mythical ancestress and even today some have a
    m a t r i l i n e a r social structure - just out of practical reasons in the real existing patriarchat:
    women were used to secure the family wealth via inheritance in case the husband and father took the change to get killed while fighting endemically for booty and fame, territory and trophies, horses and:
    the enemie's women...
    no single feud, vendetta, genozidal termination campaign between the native tribes was prevented by the veto of a female, no matter how much social status her clan or blood line had.
    warfare was endemic in both americas, the later plain-tribes forgot all about agroculture and reverted back to hunting and gathering as soon as the horse was brought over the ocean by the europeans.

    Out of personal experience I would suggest you ask a Absarokee for the history of his people - it makes european troubles looking like a fairie tale and Macchiavelli like bleak nada, the media victim.

    for reasons sake:
    what are the differences between the hithite, sumeric, assyrian, ancient egyptian or the macedonian empires and the romans - or any other empire later?
    each and everyone was a class society dwelling in visions of earth mothers, fertility goddesses and naked nymphs preserving the treasures of nature - at the same time the mediterranean forests vanished from spain to the lebanon for surplus profit and military efford, then cultivated for a brief period of agrarian production, only to be left behind as a wasteland.
    okay, the romans sacked the Celts, killed them in battle, exterminated the upper italian tribes or sold 100 000s of them into slavery after the 2nd carthagian war, later they did the same to the european nations - already gallo-romanic -, after them the British had their turn - only Ireland was never conquered. But the Irish became the craddle of the christian europe and we know how that ended so far
    - so who's to blame here?
    besides that:
    Would you like to live under a celtic 99,99% patriarchal oligarchy, being protected and exploited by a headhunting warrior elite caste, kept happy with luxurious all nighters and continous outbreaks of the "celtic furor":
    one Brennus almost sacked Roma Dea out of history, a hundred years later one of his namesakes looted greece, celtic mercenaries fought from egypt to anatolia, they also brought up the bulk of hannibals mercenary army, just after a brief resistance against the very same army - many reasons the romans never forgot the horrors of the skyclad (naked) northern hooligans...

    and all the while celtic farmers provided the base for the sports of the upper classes, developing a very advanced agriculture including artificial fertilizer and machinery, the druidic priesthood blessed the fields and made human sacrifices to the gods, drowning or hanging children, women and men or burying them alive, burning rebels and thieves in the wickermen...
    quite a display of "their place in the world" between Ireland and anatolia?
    and if the soil turned sour, they just packed up their things and went to another place.

    I guess it's debateable if the celts inability to unite when THEY were attacked - by caesars need for riches to be spend for his political ambitions - and his imperial successors as the common foe - came from a sense of decentralized power or simply the fear and distrust they felt for each other.
    Anyway the Romans made good use of the internal struggles and conquered them just one by one.
    as said before, only ireland and northern scotland weren't conquered - the romans just evaluated efford and gain - and they valued the celts there as just to poor a people... constantly ravaged by internal feuds and raids.

    times running out - so what about some answers instead of an adult mans lament?
     
  2. Danarchy

    Danarchy Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Jan 16, 2012
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    Sure you asked a question but with ridicule and scorn then referred to any answer I gave as 'obsolete' which of course is dismissive. If you don't like or agree with my perspective, fine. You wish to disagree, certainly your second post is constructive and offers something to debate. But to answer your question, one has little to do with the other except I enjoy making the place I live a bounty of food, I was raise that way and have done so when possible everywhere I live. I enjoy it, why would your ridicule or mock planting food? The other comes from my being a farmer and looking at the world from the bottom of everyone, as farmers around the world do. And the last time the hammer and sickle came together the HAMMER smashed the shit out of the sickle. That is 1930's Bolshevik rhetoric. I believe in Anarchism but I view the world from my experiences, hence my tendency towards agrarianism but even in that I have not put forward an ideology forcing everyone to become farmers or 'go back', that it primitivism. I use agrarianism as a place to start, the direction people choose to take is their own. How is that dystopian?

    You are right, I did not mean to say that Celtic or Native American societies were matriarchal rather matrilineal, thank you for the correction. Although again, your spacing of the word is meant to demean and I n s u l t not be constructive. But following your lead, it is matrilineal with an l not an r.

    Matrilineal tradition is a very important anthropological trait when considering gender equality of a culture, not a practical patriarchal expression of inheritance. Viewing everything as an expression of patriarchy is a very narrow minded and one sided interpretation of human civilisations with no appreciation of the fact we can not understand how many of the complex roles played out considering we only have remnants and snip-its of the truth. Maybe Matrilineal traditional was patriarchal in one culture for the reasons you explained but maybe in another it was because of an equality between genders that our contemporary society can not accept.

    However, now that we are on that path, in Celtic myth, and we can only go on myths or Roman writings, women held positions equal to men, again some tribes had matrilineal tradition and in many cases women ruled or lead; Scathach, Aife, Medb and Boudicca to name a few. Celtic women were also known for their courage and bravery certainly not traits of 'kept' women in the linear patriarchal view of the 20th Century. Celtic culture was F A R from being a 99.99 patriarchal oligarchy or even having much of a warrior elite ruling class. It was based on family relations in a clan and built out to greater relations with marriage between clans but we are also talking about a great number of tribes with similar language, spiritual customs and dress that define a culture, not homogenous group of automatons. Clan structure differed between tribes.

    Many Native American societies were also far more equal than our current one. Haudenosaunee culture was matrilineal, Clan mothers nominated the chief and held him accountable (including killing him if he didn't follow their wishes), men moved into the women's home after marriage and children became members of her clan, it was women who owned land; not Matriarchal but very woman dominated. In the Cherokee, Choc-taw, Chickasaw, Muscogee, and Seminole women were consider equal, held positions of power and owned land. Women were also highly respected and considered equal in the Coastal Salish and Secwepemc Nations. As for nations 'going back' to hunter gatherer that is a convenient eurocentric cover for the reality of a people whose agricultural areas and seasonal villages had been taken over or destroyed.

    Yes, all the aforementioned cultures had issues; would I prefer to live then than now, nope. I said I like my MP3 player, not to mention my tractor. Does that mean I can not take some inspiration from relatively egalitarian warrior farmer societies of the past rather than believe that all of humanity has been one big quest for world domination?

    And the crack about the Roman's being to blame was a joke, sorry if you didn't get it. Though they are used to prop up the imperialist tendencies of our current North American culture, sadly they are not to blame. Nobody is to blame for the state of the world but we all share the blame for not trying to change it. Your tone and belittling statements are certainly a good way to ensure it doesn't change.

    Now I believe that we have taken this off topic further than necessary. Whenever I mention Agrarian Anarchism again, feel free to share. That's what we're about here, s h a r I n g.
     
  3. Annie

    Annie Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Jun 22, 2013
     
    so you are still sulking? jejeje...

    and to begin with almost the end:
    sorry, I have more than one language cruising in my neuronal circuits and sometimes this damned urban babylon mixes up: it's with an r in german, almost in french (matrilinéaires) & portuguese (matrilineares), polish (matrylinearny)... worst of all is my gaelic mothers tongue:
    the term is completely nonexistent, but what else is to be expected...
    adding to my personal shame: I never really realized the navel of the world is in the US!
    I'm honestly ashamed and will inform all those other eurocentrists around me about the "l"...
    and in your anglo-centric wisdom: what about my other typos & lapses of the console?
    btw:
    the s p a c i n g was meant to emphasize the term in times of many pissed young women start to think "feminst" and get fooled by the matriarchal myth, thus wasting their xx-energy in a useless direction. this is so widespread that I simply have to SHOUT out the simple but prooved difference.

    some moment before somebody close to me said that I'm quite the re-inbodyment of scathach or medb of ulster... isn't that inspiring?!

    but now dead serious and uninspired by long vanquished warriorfarmer illusions:
    you are right, one has little to do with the other, first it's about the lifestyle you have chosen or are born into (never tried something else?) and I'm far from mocking you for that or the performance of the decent art of planting & harvesting, thus satisfying the need of a hungry world.
    and for your convenience, I'm quite capable with a spade, a rake or driving/doing service/repairing a tractor and other machinery, I know how to work with a horse in the forest and I've spend veterinary perinatology to water buffalos and cows - there is a growing network of collectives over here, working there with all those internationalists and immigrants is like holydays on a farm!
    farming isn't really everybodys first choice, so amongst a large number of a-communists and -collectivists the idea came up to develop something like a rotating system - preventing the braindrain due to rural isolation and the city-dwellers need for fresh air. after barely two years the system is already at it's limit because we lack the necessary numbers of jobs and arranged trade school vacancies. a number of people including me had to side step and gain further qualifications in the established work enviroment, currently I'm about to pass my exam as a para-emergency nurse, work for a year or two to gain some intensive care experience and after that I plan the next two years on ox-fam in northern thailand or colombia to do some international solidarity too. I guess thats a lot of change and we're still sprouting offshots...

    we can understand the damage our ancestors produced via archeology, geology and the enviromental sciences, we can also assess the number of people responsible for the remains we still find and put this knowledge in relation - the paleolithic population in europe was big enough to exterminat lots of large animal species due to inadequate hunting strategies - fazit: bye bye flintstones in the bosom of mom nature.
    we can also do the comparative history science and puzzle archeology, paleogenetics, written evidence and surviving folklore alltogether - hasta la vista celtic otherworld, hellenistic demoskratos and roman enlightning.
    we can debugg every rotten myth abused out of intent with simple material evidence, set in relation and supported by the few thousand years of human history we know with some relative accuracy. I, thank reason, am not the only one who thinks that the people of ancient times weren't much different in comparison to todays earthlings, so with lots of buried warriors in full wargear & some womem with jewelry and mirrors - barely balanced by the heaps of thrown away worn out human bones - lacking even the minimal sign of social status - at the fringes of burial mounds and graveyards... it isn't that difficult to draw conclusions.
    you can go on some greek writing dating from the days of mediterrainian trade, a bit less secure are roman writings - tacitus loved the vision of warrior women, but in all his works he mentioned only two:
    Boudiccea and Cartimandua - both queens on the brit's isle around the early time of the roman invasion.
    Cartimandua is the only one who accessed the thron of the Inceni by right/heritage, she was an early ally of the romans who secured and protected her reign. she handed the rebell and roman enemy No. 1 Caratacus over to the romans and was rewarded with riches and the rights of a roman citizen. after some public adultery her husband Vetulius started a revolt against her and her roman protectors but was beaten in battle, ready to fight another day. tacitus describes Cartimandua as a-moralistic and greedy woman loosing the support of her people - Vetulius got a second chance and attacked again, Cartimandua asked for roman help but they could only evacuate her and she vanished in exile, nothing is known about her fate.
    some ten years later Boudicca entered the stage, her husband prasutagus was a roman ally too, when he died gave his realm in equal parts to the roman empire and his two daughters.
    the roman occupants didn't accept a queen on the inceni-throne, Boudicca was flogged in public, her two daughters gang-raped by legionaries and rome took the whole of the inceni realm.
    Boudicca bade her time until the main roman army was campaigning on the far off island of anglesey, beating down a druid inspired revolt - before she started a revolt, backed up by some 50 000 enraged warriors. her forces sacked some medium cities, villages and temples, london was plundered & put to the torch, the 9th spanish legion hacked into pieces & routed - but the romans gathered their army in the distance, while boudicca had to struggle to keep her leadership while many of her warriors left army already satisfied with the booty they made during the raid.
    finally the romans regrouped in the midlands and forced the celts insurgents to battle, defeating them despite being outnumbered - boudicca vanished and her death - by her own hand or by disease later - is still debated. she was almost forgotten until the early 16th century where she had kinda rebirth in british literature as an example of british virtues...
    so - these two are the only women in high standing I know of - is this "relative equality???
    the quality of traditional celtic folklore would make another timeconsuming section - are you aware that the remaining celtic myths are limited to once celtic ireland, scotland and wales? do you know who wrote these handful of books around 1200 after the calendar started and that the critical literatur science claims some christian intent in relation with the "pagan" content of these folk stories - Scathach, Mebd and Aoife are exemplary characters in the ulster cyclus, each and everyone of them (there are a lot more women having their part) is described as a very malign character, constantly scheming, bellicose, cruel and unpredictable. their greed and ruthless arrogance leads to the death of the main character of the tale, cu chulainn - but only after he kills his best friend ferdia and his & uathachs (scathachs daughter) son conla.
    fazit: women are men's doom... okay, at least the story is much better than beverlyhills9???!

    I admit I lack the detailed knowledge about the native american native clan structures - but where are the names of women except pocahontas and this crazy northeastern female warriorhunter some french colonial writer mentioned in the 17th century?
    is there any evidence for a femal influence on decisionmaking about war & peace, any native general like Tecumseh, Crowfoot, Red Kettle, Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull???
    I don't blame "everything" on patriarchal structures, they are just another aspect of the destructive character of hierarchy and inequality - turning men into offender-victims and women into victims. both failed by now to step out of their misery and become masters of their own living.
    why should we try to strengthen our arguments with the examples of long gone days with "lots of issues" very similiar to the issues of our very lifetime? if you say we can't really assess "those days" and their people - why do you cling so desperately on those very dubious myths and legends?
    if we want to achieve something, shouldn't we be honest and in step with the time, analyze todays issues with resonable responsibility - instead of - as the worst example: the primitive shrouding up in laughable constructions of worlds that never were?
    well, nobody around here got the joke, so I'm in quite some good company - isn't at least that funny?
    if somebody is to blame for the state of the world, he or she is already dead and forgotten.
    and I, my dear, work my ass of to change the urban microbabel, seven days a week and in the foreseeable future I will come back for some time on the larger stage too! and I'm quite delighted by what I do and for sure not to blame...
     
  4. loulizard

    loulizard New Member New Member


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    Jun 26, 2013
     
    Had quite some nice reading here and there
    viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7754&hilit=civilisation+is+the+real+enemy too, so FUCK THE FLINTSTONES!

    I guess I know you:
    Vocals for Torera Radiante and FIVEBEERPLAN??! You're a maniac you know...
    (There are rumors going round about a video of the 2012 RASH party, I was there and would love to get some media of the really great time we had.
    Btw: Do you girls ever wear bra's?)

    Some more questions:
    Wasn't it Cartimandua of the B r i g a n t e s Confederation who fell for the roman enlightment?
    I agree, thats Bolshevik rap - resulting in 20 000000 deaths in the gulags and NKWD prisons of the stalinist eara.

    What is the other side, let's call it the industrial part of your concepts, what about non-workers and slackers?

    I would like to contact you in person, how could we arrange that?
    have fun!
     
  5. Annie

    Annie Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Jun 22, 2013
     
    jejeje - time to sound the creep alarm?
    nah, you don't know me, somebody told you a name - and I got a feeling that wasn't this persons best idea.
    TR and FBP - that was before we abolished the concept of bands and the Toreras retired from radiating to welcome the beerdrinking masses on the stage, thus giving the fivebeerplan a well deserved send off too.
    and by the way: I did a lot more, doing strings and pipes, running around barefoot, having fun.
    and you are wrong, the maniacs are these:
    [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XLtGmi11MYE[/video]
    there is N O video or other stuff avaliable - thanks to a shady character with some dubious ideas about poverty and the products of other peoples sweat and activity.
    the video in question was part of a youth-project assisting people to discover and develop their artistic potential - so TR-FBP-XX provided only a small portion of the big cake - any idea how you missed that?
    this is the riddle part, isn't it? I'm not good at riddles, but I know a funny game I'm quite good at:
    left-fist-right-fist
    the looser won't need any eye-makeup for a couple of days, at least no black nor blues...
    you are right - I mixed that up and Cartimandua ruled over the Brigantes - but I wouldn't call a quasi-feudal fiefdom a confederation, a general staff meeting is no workers council assembly?
    I agree too(!!!) - but it's from 1905 - 1923 and not from the 1930, you know:
    the moulting of the ailing social-democratic cuckoo... world revolution ahead, workers self-liberation, anti-militarism, internationalism & solidaric struggle in the class war...
    there was a lot more than brussels/london 1902, lenintrotzkistalin, bolshevist party, professional revolutionaries, career cadres, enforced collectivisation, riot control, tscheka-gpu-nkwd-show trial-gulag-iron curtain-rogue state-realm of darkness-evil mordor...
    and even monster tzar Iossif Wissarionowitsch Stalin the first - aka Iosseb Bessarionis dse Dschughaschwili couldn't change that.
    anybody calling me a bolshevic?
    you said you were at the RASH too - how did you managed to miss the main part?
    I wouldn't call it "industrial" - amongst the 27 groups that paraded their work are also service-sector undertakings, some education and social/communication groups - and even urbane agriculture!
    I have no problem with non-workers and slackers, they get out of the way, never ask stupid questions and as the bolsho-anarchist I am: ... to everybody according to his need.
    I think that's not a good idea, my mom always told me:
    don't talk to ???
     
  6. Annie

    Annie Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Jun 22, 2013
     
    an egalitarian early anatolian civilisation

    the british archaeologist james mellaart discovered 1958 a mound consisting of numerous neolitic settlement levels in southern anatolia. the site fascinated mellaart because its immense size, later it turned out to be the most extensive neolitic site known today in the near east.
    since this mound is situated at a bifurcation, it is called "mound at the fork":
    Catalhüyük (turkish catal - fork, hüyük - cairn)

    mellaart started its excavation which lasted until 1965, from 1993 on investigations were resumed, projected for 25 years and counted amongst the largest archeological projects of our time.
    since 2012 catalhüyük is part of the UNESCO world cultural heritage.

    the mound consists of twelve building levels of a neolithic city which was inhabited from 7300 until 6100 before the calendar - 1200 years without interruption. according to present-day estimates, up to about 10 000 people lived together in catahüyük, the settlement was neither destroyed nor looted. so a large number of well-preservated finds were awaiting discovery.
    mellaarts discovery of a neolithic city turned out not to be the oldest and very "first" settlement. the further archaeologists went into the east of anatolia during the following decades, the older became the cultural centres they found. as late as in 1990 hallan cemi was discovered as the (by now known) oldest settlement of permanently stettled people:
    hallan cemi was founded in 10 200 befor the calendar!

    around 11 000 before the calendar, there were still cave walls being painted in the pyrenees by paleolithic hunters and gatherers - 800 years before hallan cemi was founded, some 800 years later the ice age ended.
    if hallan cemi in eastern anatolia stands for the beginning of an epoch, beycesultan, founded in 4600 before the calendar and situated farthest in the west, stands for its end.
    from around 4000 bc, an exploiters class begins to establish itself, finally getting into power around 3000 bc. the development of metal weapons, a writing system and a ruling authority constituted the most effective mechanisms of oppression available to an exploitive ruling elite. beycesultan, similar to troya, becomes the capital of a renowned viceroyalty of the hittites. it is here where this article makes the connection with history.

    the ancient anatolian civilizations span spatio-temporally from the end of the ice age in the east on one hand to the beginning of history in the west on the other. the 6000 years in between comprise exactly the age of the neolithic, the last phase of the stone age, when people did not yet produce their tools from metal but were already living settled lives and practised agriculture and animal husbandry.

    the social revolution
    the term "neolithic revolution" was coined 1936 by the marxist archaeologist vere gordon child, it was meant to describe the transition from nomadic foraging to a settled way of life with regard to food production. the term is formed as an analogy to the "industrial revolution", the revolution of only the productive forces.

    since then, it became evident that the revolution of the productive forces turned out to be a truly social revolution - a revolutionary transformation of all social conditions.
    the various phases of the neolithic revolution can clearly be traced throughout the succession of building levels in cayünü in eastern anatolia.
    housebuilding, agriculture and animal husbandry weren't invented in cayünü itself, but the temporal order in which the new techniques arrived in the settlement corresponds exactly to the order in which they originally had developed albeit at another site.

    the lower layers (8800 - 8500 bc.) testify to a permanently settled way of life on the basis of hunting and gathering, in the layer above (around 8000 bc. the first imported seeds are found. the next higher layer documents the arrival of the first herd of sheep around 7300 bc.
    with the practice of animal husbandry, the three basic innovations of the first phase of the neolithic revolution are complete.
    this technical progress, however, takes place in a destructive, patriarchal and hierarchical society of enormous cruelty. apart from the houses for living and storage, in each of the above-mentioned building levels of cayünü was a "special building", rectangular in shape, measuring 8 x 12 sqm, without windows, dug into a slope which bordered the settlement towards the east. in front of this temple was a rectangular space of 1500 sqm, flanked by monoliths up to 2 m high - all in all a complex of intimidating monumentality.
    to the north, this space was terminated by three large, manorial houses that had identical fronts, alignment and distance from each other. these houses stood on an elevated platform on massive foundations made from big hewn blocks and had carefully constructed stone walls, a verandah and stone stairs. in these three houses, the wealth of the society was concentrated: large blocks of crystals, stone sculptures, shells from the mediterranean sea and the red sea (!) as well as imported weapons of high quality.
    in the western part of the settlement the houses were only half as large, of distinctly poorer quality, without any additional features and they were not build according to a standardized plan. only the few tools needed for daily living were found there.
    if the unequal distribution of wealth and power becomes evident just by looking at the architecture and treasures discovered, the existence of private ownership of the means of production can be proven directly by an extraordinary finding:
    all resources neccessary for the production of tools that had to be transported from far away locations via long distance trade - flint and obsidian - were found exclusively in the houses situated near the temple. there they were stored in blocks up to 5 kilograms, representing an enormous value - the finished tools weighed no more than 4 grams!
    what was not found was the midden from chipping stones - there was no trace of any productive activity.

    the situation in the slums of the west was exactly the opposite. here no resources were found, but in the streets there was workshop debris from the chipping of flint and obsidian.
    obviously there was a small group of people who possessed and controlled the resources and a large group of people who worked without possessing - in other words:
    there were classes.
    it is characteristic that this most ancient of all known class societies should present itself to us as a patriarchal society of bitter destructiveness:
    the gloomy temples dug into the mountain like caves served to maintain power in a society that was obviously rigidly organized through open terror - human sacrifices.
    in the temples of all building levels huge amounts of blood were shed, which the excavators retrieved in thick crusts on daggers, altars or draining funnels which were designed specifically for that purpose. the analysis of the isolated blood pigment haemoglobin revealed that it was generally human blood. in the chambers of one of these temples there were the skulls of more than 70 people and parts of skeletons of more than 400 individuals, "neatly stacked up to the ceiling".
    the situation in the other settlements of eastern anatolia was comparable.

    however, whereas in other parts of the globe the development of this kind of class society proceeded further, like in central american civilisation for example, the history of southeast anatolia took a completely different turn:
    on a certain day 9200 years ago the manorial houses at the north side of the large square in cayünü were burnt down, and this happened so fast, that the owners were not able to save any of their treasures.
    the temple was torn down and burnt, and even the floor was ripped open, the stone pillars around the free space were taken down and the taller of them were broken up.
    the place itself - previously maintained and kept meticulously clean for more than 1000 years, was converted into a municipal waste dump.

    after a short chaotic transition all houses had been torn down. the slums in the west disappeared for good, but only a few steps away from the spot where the ruins of the manorial houses had burnt, the new cayünü was erected. the new houses were comparable in size to the old manors, but there were no more houses or shacks build to an inferior standard.

    work was done in all these new houses and all hints to social differences seemed to be erased.
    after these findings had been documented in 1989, the supervisor of the excavations of cayünü, mehmet ösdogan, could exclude the invasion of foreign peoples, war, plagues or natural disasters in 1997 - he concluded that the cause for this obvious change must have been a social upheaval. he confirmed this conclusion in his reports 1999 and 2000.

    the revolutionaries of those remote times not only succeeded in overthrowing a regime cruel, exploitive and 1000 years old - they also succeeded in developing their own alternative society, devising and realizing it. the social revolution of the year 7200 bc. is the hour of the birth of at least neolithic egalitarianism. a classless society arises in which women and men are equal, a society which rapidly spreads over the whold of anatolia and almost simultaneously over the balcans - this society endures for 3000 years.

    Çatalhöyük
    as indicated further above, catalhüyük holds an astonishing amount of remarkably well preserved finds and buildings. the conservation of perishable materials is especially remarkable since no comparable place of discovery displays such materials. a fire in the history of the town caused the ground in the layer below to become sterile as far down as at least 1 m depth and all organic materials to become carbonized in the process.

    thus, products of organic material were preserved in carbonized form and we know the weaving patterns of the fabrics, clothing, leather artefacts and furs, cane baskets and mats, carbonized food as well as wooden tableware, wooden furniture, boxes with their content and so on.

    moreover, people in catalhüyük usually painted pictures on two walls of their houses to document aspects of their living and experiences. they buried the deceased under the floors of their houses with characteristic grave goods so that, in a way, we know the inhabitants of the settlement almost personally, including their fate as far as it can be read from the skeletons:
    age at death, sex, number of births, diseases, accidents ect., as well as statistical information deduced from these data such as infant mortality, life-span ect.. new methods allow analyzing micro elements in teeth and analyzing collagen in the bones and thus provide information about what people ate during the last years before their death.
    this way we know already more about pre-historic catalhüyük than about many historic civilisation which are closer to us in time.

    how do we know that this society was classless?

    generally, there are three criteria, even four in the case of catalhüyük, which must be seen in conjunction:

    1. the architecture:
    in class societies, architecture designed for living and ruling by members of the ruling class differs considerably from architecture designed for living and working of the exploited class,
    not only in terms of quantity (living space) but also in terms of quality (structure). it has never been difficult for an archaeologist in egypt to differentiate between the palace of a pharaoh and a living place of a peasant family.

    2. grave goods:
    if it is usual in a society to bury grave goods with the deceased, it is possible to deduce different social classes from the goods that differ substantially in quality. the same applies to
    3. equipment with consumer goods:
    in both cases the example of pharao and peasant family is helpful for illustrative purposes. it is important, however, that with respect to both grave goods and equipment with consumer goods, gradual differences do not present a criterion for different social classes. a prominent piece in an otherwise average grave, certain differences in quality between consumer goods or burial objects that are a little richer or a little poorer are typical for the lower classes and can already be detected in rural or proletarian families of ancient egypt.

    architecture, burial objects and equipment with consumer goods: all of these are outstandigly well preserved in catalhüyük and shed a light on the classless structure of this society. additionally, a further criterion plays a role:
    lawrence angel who analyzed the retrieved skeletons also examined the bones for abraision and he found in all skeletons of the working people indications for hard physical work. angel wrote:

    "these are striking but expectable adaptions in a people as active as the catyl hüyük frescoes show" and he concluded: "the price for the creativity and relative stability... was hard work on the part of everybody" - in contrast: in class societies, as is generally know, the possessors do not work, so the members of the ruling class may show diseases of affluence but no abraision of the bones by hard physical work.

    the classless society

    the key to understanding the structure of society of catalhüyük, however is its architecture.
    the houses in the city stood wall to wall without any space between them, though each house had its own walls and a flat roof. the city spreads in terraces across the mound and there were only a few courtyards situated in the midst of this "honeycomb structure".
    access to these houses was only possible by way of crossing roofs. on each roof, there was a ladder which allowed people living further inside the settlement to climb towards their own home from roof to roof. in each of the roofs, there was an opening protected by a cover. here was the ladder leading down into the house.

    in the midst of the wilderness, the roofs of catalhüyük formed an artificial landscape created by man, which by now has come to be regarded as an independent cultural achievement. on these roofs there were storage containers,
    hearths and workshops. the roofs were the actual space of production and communication, they had no private character. it becomes clear that life in catalhüyük must have been regulated by an abundance of mutual agreements:
    not only all food needed to be carried over the roofs, each used diaper meant a further descent from all the roofs down to the river.
    building material for new buildings as well as clay and water for the annual plastering of the inner walls of the houses:
    everything had to be hauled across the ladders and roofs of other families. findings of two collapsed roofs show that the roofs were not infinitely stable. catastrophes could only be avoided by a complex network of binding agreements, practices that had become routine, the physical remnants of which nowadays must appear as indications of rituals.

    all houses had a rectangular ground plan and at the southern wall - where the ladder led down into the house from the roof - there was the kitchen wing with oven and hearth. on the opposite walls in the north and the east there were platforms laid from bricks where people could sit, eat and sleep. these platforms belonged to either an adult (possibly with a baby) or two children. below these platforms, the dead were buried. the walls above were embellished with wall paintings or reliefs. the square middle part between the kitchen wing and the platforms was covered by a plaited mat and - similiar to the roofs, served as a working place, as the midden found shows.

    actually, in catalhüyük there was only this type of house - in 1500 copies. moreover, the building principle is kept throughout all building levels so that for 1200 years only this one type of house was built, this concerned material, ground plan, height and room layout and even light supply.

    the interior design, that is, decoration of the walls and platforms, varied only gradually. even this kind of architecture does not leave room for social differences. all houses were equal in quality. representational architecture, such as temples or palaces, is completely absent. each building was inhabited. the division between "sacral" and "profane" activities was not marked by erecting different buildings, but within each house by the existence of a sacral area (the platforms below the mural painting) and a profane part of the building (kitchen tract and working place in the centre).
    thus, the existence of professional priests was unnecessary - from the results of the excavations in cayünü it can be deduced that within the framework of the social revolution cultic buildings and priesthood were generally abolished.

    in 2003, it was assumed that only a few minor roads led into the centre, since one supposed representational architecture there, archaeologist hodder started excavations and found... the central waste dump!
    "... there is little evidence of public spaces and buildings - once again, neolithic catalhüyük seems to consist of just houses and midden", holder wrote.

    the egalitarian nature of the society of people in catalhüyük is even reinforced by the only difference between the usage of space in the houses: living space. it corresponds to the size of family so that each adult, or two children below the age of 15 respectively, had 10 to 12 sqm at their disposal. the family size can be deducted from the number of platforms.

    since a house could serve as a living space for about 120 years, the question has to be asked:
    how did people adapt their living space to the changing number of inhabitants?
    one answer may be given by the ground plan, each house with three platforms - corresponding to about 30 sqm - included one or two small rooms of about 10 to 12 sqm floor space each. these rooms served to keep supplies but, above all, to dispose of anorganic midden such as pottery fragments, leftovers from stone chipping or plaster, ashes from hearth and oven and so on. when the need for more living space arose, the midden was brought from the room to a construction site where it was needed for filling and for producing a level floor space for the foundation of a new house. the emptied and cleaned room was then at the disposal for more living space. thus it becomes clear why with enlarged houses the small rooms are missing in the plans. conversely, if one person remained in the house, living space was actually reduced to 12 sqm.
    the interesting fact is thus that the maximum living space possible was not used from the beginning but only when the need arose - and when it declined, living space was reduced again. if all houses had been equally large, it would have given the impression of equality on the outside, but actually individual persons would have been treated very unequally: an individual in a large family would have had less space at his or her disposal than in a small one. the fact that the houses were adapted to real circumstances ensured that each person always had 10 to 12 sqm to him- or herself. the "living houses" of catalhüyük show that the needs of the people were a socially mandatory basis of production.
    this evidence is confirmed and complemented by the analysis of burial objects and skeletons.

    individuality and gender relations
    the burial objects found in the graves emphasize not only social equality since they differ only marginally concerning their quantity and character, but also confirm the individual differences between persons. the burial objects even vary within one living space and thus rater document differences between individuals than differences due to membership of different classes.

    mellaart could not imagine the societal wealth he found to be generally, equally distributed.
    therefore he presumed that the area he excavated was the quarter of the priests, and in the rest of the town circumstances mus have been poorer. this was an assumption which could be rejected with good arguments especially after the results of skeleton examinations had been published by angel in 1971.
    already in 1969, it was demonstrated that the collective findings were easier to reconcile with a society without stratification. hodder's early investigations proved that catalhüyük looked everywhere as it did in the area excavated by mellaart. this means that in catalhüyük those differences between people are absent that are so striking in a society divided into classes.
    archaeologists accordingly describe this society as egalitarian or discuss subtle differences between an egalitarian and a stratified society. naomi hamilton finds the resolving words for this discussion:
    "differences need not mean structural inequality. ranking by age, achieved status, social roles based on skill and knowledge ect. do not necessarily contradict an egalitarian ethos."

    the graves in catalhüyük already show that a social division of labour was missing since the dead were given tools for various activities of basic production and in each house there were seeds. however, it can also be seen that people were partially specialized according to their aptitudes in skilled activities that exceeded basic production, from burial objects such as painting utensils or copper. presumably by producing ceramics, people in catalhüyük had discovered how to smelt metallic copper from copper ore, as documented by the preserved slag.

    there is one striking difference to class societies: burial objects were not produced explicitly for burials, but they rather were goods which people had used during their lives and which were left to them in death. this also holds true for objects which truly are at the end of the "gradual spectrum". perfectly crafted flint daggers, mirrors sanded from obsidian that were more brilliant than antique metal mirrors, as well as flawless tools made from obsidian, all of them found in graves: they document both the deployed different preferences and abilities of peoples who were able to produce them and the respect of their fellow human beings who left these objects to them in their graves instead of retaining them for themselves.
    pieces like these led mellaart to the assumption that they could have been produced in this perfection only by full specialists, particularly since he did not find any midden resulting from production. during the next excavations specific attention was paid, therefore, to microscopic traces of midden in the clay floors, and domestic waste was analyzed.
    in this way, evidence could be provided for midden resulting from work on stones. this means that manufacturing stones was not the task of full specialists but was conducted in every household, or associated households in the case of complex production processes that were possible only collectively. burial objects that were found in a house had been produced and used in that house and been buried with the person who had manufactured and used them. hodder draws the conclusion that "we cannot argue for total control of production by an elite".

    just like the "living houses" that changed with their inhabitants and were adapted to changing living circumstance, this attachment of people to the objects of daily life conveys an integrated image of organic structures and vital coherences.
    truly outstanding and especially remarkable is the fact that women, too, received tools as burial objects, just as men did. in later class societies, men (of the "middle classes") received burial objects that allowed conclusions as to their profession, but women's graves contained only jewellery: rich women were given rich jewellery, poor women poor jewellery.
    that these women worked just as hard - if not even harder - than men is not reflected in the burial objects. the tools in neolithic women graves illustrate that women were recognized as equals as a matter of course in the production of goods. this, in turn, supports the assumption that in this society the antagonism between production and reproduction was abolished.
    there are mural paintings in catalhüyük that complement and confirm this assumption - they show men dancing with children, a motiv that does not occur in class society until the 13th century bc. and also later only led a shadowy existence. also, in contrast to mellaart's statement, not only women were buried with children but men also.

    however, not only were women buried with tools, but also men were buried with jewellery, partially with considerable amounts. naomi hamilton who in hodder's team is responsible for working with the graves and therefore for analyzing gender relations, doubts if the definition of a social gender apart from biological sex is at all helpful in the discussion on catalhüyük.
    she regards the concept of gender as bound to our times and their problems and considers the possibility that neolithic humans did not perceive men and women as being a polarity. indeed, already in 1990 hodder developed the thought that the decisive polarity for neolithic perception may have been of a different nature. it is ineresting that more recent considerations lead to an analogous assumption concerning the palaeolithic.
    the author, elke heidefrau, writes:
    "possibly, the discussion of gender... mainly reveals something about our own culture: a culture in which it seems immensely important to know the sex of another person (- like the first question asked after the birth of a child). to us, a culture in which this is not the case seems almost unthinkable; therefore, such thoughts could open new horizons to us and thus enrich the current gender discussion!" obviously, at that time the real individuals were at the centre, and when they liked to adorn themselves their jewellery it was not taken away from them when they died - regardless of their sex. and it was people who produced, possessed and used tools and therefore also kept them in their graves - again:
    regardless of their sex.

    hodder dedicated a separate publication to gender relations in order to refute the older conceptions of a matriarchy in catalhüyük in 2004. in this article in "scientific american" he presents an impressive documentation of gender equality in catalhüyük: there were no significant differences concerning nutrition, body height and life style between man and women. men and women performed very similar tasks, as can be deduced from the abraison of bones. both sexes stayed in and outside the house equally long and were equally active in the kitchen as in tool production. there are no hints pointing to a gender-related division of labour. it is only from artwork that one can deduce that outside the house, men hunted whereas women engaged in agriculture. mural paintings show, however, women together with men in depictions of chase, as published in mellaart's excavation reports 1966. and the equal burial of men and women sealed equality even in death.

    solidarity and care

    equality in society which creates space to develop individuality leads to the question:
    "how do people who are equal and free interact with each other?"

    answers can be found in individual fates as deduced from relations between findings, in institutions and statistical values from examinations of skeletons.
    the fate of a hunter, for instance, who was speared by an aurochs and hauled to his house lethally wounded and cared for self-sacrificingly by his family until he died from severe ischial inflammation and deep bone infection shows that the family could be cared for even if an important family member was absent.
    "a girl (...) who suffered from a broken femur which might have crippled her" and who died at the age of seventeen received an extraordinarily elaborate burial (mellaart 1967). she, but also the prematurely born infant and his mother who died together with her child were treated with red ochre, a symbolism which was supposed to ensure rebirth.
    the burial of a mother who, with her twelve years old son, was struck dead by a collapsing roof is still tugging at one's heartstrings today, even in the photography of the skeletons.
    looking at these stories about caring and treatment of the sick, deep empathy for those unfairly treated by fate becomes obvious.

    it is not only individual fates that point to caring for the sick but also institutions. angel interprets various buildings in catalhüyük as regular hospitals (1971). comparing statistical data from catalhüyük with those from elmali karatas - a town in the same region - which, however, was not settled in the neolithic but in the early bronze age,
    it is striking that infant mortality there was 30 % higher than in catalhüyük. also, in the town from the bronze age no one achieved an age beyond 55 - 60 years whereas in the neolithic city a small portion of the population reached the age of 60 - 70 years.
    considering the enormous progress of the bronze age revolution on the basis of just a single example, the plough which brings progress of productivity of more than 100 % as compared to the neolithic digging stick, such a decline of quality of life seems astonishing.
    however, other than material wealth (named gross domestic product today), quality of life (infant mortality, life expectancy, caring in case of sickness, assurance of basic alimentation, access to education, equality of opportunity) depend on social conditions much more than on economic efficiency.

    and the transition from the stone age to the bronze age does not only imply numerous technical achievements but also the emergence of class society. class society means patriarchy and exploitation: women have to work until shortly before they give birth - and after childbirth again as soon as possible. this increases infant mortality and decreases life expectancy of women. class society means war, too, and this decreases life expectancy of men.

    according to angel (1971) the average life expectancy in catalhüyük was 32 years. even if we are horrified by this figure, we have to realize that, for the exploited class, it was only reached again around 1750. this means that three hundred years ago of today the rural bonded slave peasant had less life expectancy than a free city peasant in the stone age!
    in this way, the positive effects of technical progress were exceeded by the negative consequences of exploitation and oppressive control over the means of production.

    what is missing in catalhüyük?

    a society is characterized not only by what is existing. what is absent can be just as revealing.

    for example, evidence of property offences is missing. robbery as a criminal offence cannot be proven archaeologically, grave robbery as a special form of robbery can be. grave robbery exists in all cultures in which objects have an exchange value (in which the time necessary to produce them is measured) in which these values are distributed unequally in society and great values are given into the graves of the dead while the living suffer in misery.
    no sanctions, not even the cruelest execution methods, curses of the gods, expectancy of horrible agonies in the nether world ever prevented people from plundering graves under such circumstances - which is why grave robbery has always been present since the beginnings of class society.

    however, in societies where goods have no exchange value since they are merely objects of daily use, which are produced and shared according to need but not exchanged, no motive for grave robbery applies.
    consequently, in catalhüyük there is no example for grave robbery (mellaart 1989)

    most impressive, compared with the situation in class societies (like the ones of today) is the fact that depictions of aggression are completely missing.
    "what can be said, however, is that from over a hundred paintings, there is not one depicting a scene of conflict or fighting, let alone of war, ill-treatment or torture. there is no taste of things to come with the rise of civilisation" (mellaart 1989)
    in the same way, depictions of judiciary and conviction are missing. since visual depictions of aggressive acts are missing completely. it has to be asked if this is to be attributed to the fact that acts of violence were not tolerated in society and therefore were not depicted (a fact which would be remarkable in itself) or if violence itself was absent in society. the answer is given by the skeletons of catalhüyük.

    there is no single individuum which shows indications of a violent death; no finding of human bones points to raw violence caused by a fellow individual as a cause of death (mentioned explicitly by mellaart (1967), implicitly confirmed by angel (1971) and hamilton (1996). no one in catalhüyük died because someone else killed or lethally wounded him!
    furthermore, dealing with people in a destructive way for cultic (religious) purposes is completely missing. there were
    no trepanations of skulls as in neolithic central europe
    no deformation of skulls as in central american peoples or ancient egypt
    no ritual mutilation of the hands as in caves in the pyrenees during the ice age
    no knocking out of teeth during initiation rites as with australian aborigines
    no blood sacrifices - this means that although animals were slaughtered for consumption, there was no equipment for ritual killing to be found.

    and there was no war!

    this holds true not only for catalhüyük until the last day of the settlement, but for 1500 years for anatolia and from 6500 until 4000 bc. for the complete civilisation of the balkans whose definite peacefulness has been stressed already by childe (childe 1952).
    taken as a whole, these facts today seem as the archaeology of an utopia. however, we must understand that 10 000 people without central power could never have lived together in such density for such a long time if they had not possessed nonviolent methods for solving conflicts in the first place. if use of force has been part of the repertoire of strategies for conflict resolution, settlements such as catalhüyük would not have been able to survive for
    such a long time - no one could have prevented the settlement from dissolving. another argument in favour of the absence of violence a priori is the above mentioned complete absence of destruction in the murals area:
    people had developed images of the beyond which were just as peaceful as they themselves were.
    "the organization of so many people without major central authority was only possible because of an elaborate social code that regulated the daily lives." (hodder 1998)

    anarcho-communist society

    it is probable that the causes of this peacefulness were of a socio-economic nature, because everybody knew that they could only survive together ("a fundamental truth which we tend to miss").
    it is crucial, however, that people dealt with each other in a caring and peaceful manner, knowing they depended on each other. it was only by co-operation that they could survive, and day by day they experienced anew that many persons collectively could accomplish things individuals could not:
    catalhüyük - or, as it is called today in a more general way: "the neolithic way of life" (özdogan, for anatolia 1997, whittle for europe 1996)

    avoiding destructive activities and not having exploiters on their backs who would have taken most of the fruits of their labour, these people could reduce the average working time they needed for satisfying their basic needs to less than half of their productive time, as narr has deduced indirectly (narr 1968/69).
    more than half of their time remained for satisfying their elaborate needs as can be seen in the surprising production of consumer goods (e.g. Mellaart 1964, 1967), in the diversity and quality of alimentation and in social life.
    this is documented by art whose task it was to teach the rules of daily social life: painting, music, dances and frequent feasting.
    from mural paintings and from the amazing fact that the tigh bones of almost half of the adults showed an anatomical alteration which might have originatd from excessive dancing (angel 1971) it has to be deduced that people were feasting frequently. the excavation of the remainders of such a feast also prove that they left nothing to be desired (martin and russel 2000)
    thus, feasting and dancing considerably contributed to the stability of the society and prevented gathering of too much surplus.

    as well as that, remnants from those faraway days may convey an idea of what is possible even at a technological stone age level when man is free, the means of production common property and the social relations are humane.
    after utopia has been discredited because of stalin- and maoism, the discovery of this society receives a particular importance. it enables collecting empirical data and provides an example for the relations between anarcho-communist relations of production and social structure - and this in a society which did not last for only 150 but for 3000 years.
    and what would be possible today - with todays technical development - if only we would reach reasonable social conditions and the freedom of mankind?

    edit by me (annie): the population of catalhüyük is estimated around 10 000 people and an confirmed average of 6000 to 8000 people - at the same time the total population of europe is estimated somewhere between 550 000 and 950 000.

    opinions please!
     
  7. punkmar77

    punkmar77 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member


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    Nov 13, 2009
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    Long but fascinating Annie, is it no coincidence that the Black Rose only grows naturally in that area of the world?
     
  8. Annie

    Annie Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Jun 22, 2013
     
    I can't say, but thanks to our anatolian friends staying here with us this beauty took root almost as easy as there, fitting perfectly and inspiring with it's strong seed and thriving constancy.
    It was known in Eire as Róisín Dubh, but they misunderstood it, turning it into the opposite, so I guess boston, portland and montreal were a bit more lucky getting their share of this gift:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism

    last year I witnessed dimitrios roussopoulos seeding out in athens:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitrios_Roussopoulos

    and let's not forget, even the little we know about catalhüyük proves almost every primo myth wrong!
     
  9. IamMe

    IamMe Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    what do you think of anarcho-primitivism.

    Hi all i was wandering what are peoples thoughts on anarcho-primitivism. i have read a little bit about it and it sounds pretty good to me. if im right they want to go back and live like hunter and gathering societies and use little to no farming methods and live in harmony with one another and nature. this sounds awesome to me but how realistic is this ideology in a world where its almost impossible to escape society. so can some explain the pros and cons of anarcho-primitivism to me thanks. :thumbsup:
     
  10. Rebellious twit

    Rebellious twit Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Jul 21, 2012
     
    Re: what do you think of anarcho-primitivism.

    Firstly, Anarcho-primtivism, isn't anarchism after my opinion, secondly anarchism means progress not going backwards in time, anarcho-primitivism wants people to be dictated under their rule, i suggest you take a look at this http://anarcho-punk.net/viewtopic.php?f ... tivism+vs-
     
  11. IamMe

    IamMe Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Dec 29, 2012
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    Re: what do you think of anarcho-primitivism.

    thanks steg i didn't realize there was already a discussion on the subject and theres a lot of information about it i will give it a read :thumbsup:
     
  12. Rebellious twit

    Rebellious twit Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Jul 21, 2012
     
    Re: what do you think of anarcho-primitivism.

    cheers :ecouteurs: !
     
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